Shade
Monster Junkie
Golem, Transient
http://www.enworld.org/forum/genera...ing-creatures-other-campaign-settings-53.html
Golem, Transient
Medium Construct (Incorporeal)
Hit Dice: 13d10+20 (91 hp)
Initiative: +3
Speed: Fly 10 ft. (perfect)
Armor Class: 16 (+3 Dex, +3 deflection), touch 16, flat-footed 13
Base Attack/Grapple: +6/+6
Attack: Incorporeal touch +9 touch (infusion)
Full Attack: Incorporeal touch +9 touch (infusion)
Space/Reach: 5 ft./5 ft.
Special Attacks: Infusion
Special Qualities: Construct traits, crystal phylactery, darkvision 60 ft., immunity to magic, low-light vision
Saves: Fort +4, Ref +7, Will +7
Abilities: Str —, Dex 17, Con —, Int —, Wis 17, Cha 16
Skills: —
Feats: —
Environment: Any
Organization: Solitary
Challenge Rating: 8
Treasure: None
Alignment: Usually neutral
Advancement: —
Level Adjustment: —
The nearby fog as well has a slight tang of hot copper.
A transient golem is a sad creature of mist that craves life, to live as something more than semi-sentient air and water. Only in corporeal form can it feel physical sensations, experience human emotions, reason, and remember. Sadly, the transient golem can only assume a corporeal form by stealing life from other creatures, and this lasts but a short period of time.
When empowered by the essence of any living creature, the transient golem takes on that creature's form and appearance. Even clothing, armor, and weapons are duplicated, although they are merely solidified mist and do not function as the original objects.
The creator of the original transient golem is a mystery lost to the ages. It is speculated that a powerful wizard used a combination of a crystal ball, the trap the soul spell, and thirteen bound mist horrors.
COMBAT
In its natural mistlike form, the golem instinctually seeks out a host from which to steal life energy via infusion. Once the creature assumes a physical form, its next instinct is self-preservation, and it will take the most direct course of action available to it to maintain its new shape. The monster also begins to accumulate experience and memories immediately, and it quickly develops sophisticated methods to sustain itself without revealing its true nature.
A transient golem's armor class has a deflection bonus equal to its Charisma bonus or +1, whichever is higher.
Immunity to Magic (Ex): A transient golem is immune to any spell or spell-like ability that allows spell resistance. In addition, certain spells and effects function differently against the creature, as noted below.
All spells with the Abjuration descriptor always function against a transient golem as if the golem was a creature of a type most vulnerable to the spell. e.g. a protection from evil spell affects a transient golem as if it was a summoned creature with the Evil subtype despite it being neutral and unlikely to be summoned. If the Abjuration would trap or control the golem, such as the dismissal, imprisonment or sequester spells, it instead "kills" the golem and forces it to return to its crystal phylactery (see below).
Note that this means protection from evil, magic circle against chaos and similar spells automatically prevent a transient golem using its Infusion attack, since they prevent summoned monsters from making bodily contact with those they are warding.
Infusion (Su): An incorporeal transient golem can attempt to enter the body of a living, corporeal creature in order to steal its life-force and copy its mind and body. First, the golem must succeed at an incorporeal touch attack to enter an orifice on its victim. If successful, on the next round the victim must succeed at a DC 19 Fort save or the transient golem enters their mind and nervous system, causing excruciating agony (-4 to attacks, skills and ability checks) for 1d4+1 rounds. In addition, the victim takes 1d3 Con damage per round as the golem saps their life-force. Finally, at the end of the 1d4+1 rounds, the golem leaves the victim's body and takes a corporeal form duplicating the victim (this is given by the Transient Golem Duplicate template below). If the save succeeds, the transient golem is expelled from the victim's body and can not use its Infusion attack against that creature again for 24 hours. The save DC is Charisma-based.
Crystal Phylactery
A transient golem's life force is stored in a crystal sphere similar to a lich's magic phylactery. The creation of a transient golem is actually the creation of its crystal phylactery. As a rule, the only way to get rid of a transient golem for sure is to destroy its phylactery. Unless its phylactery is located and destroyed, the golem reappears 1d10 days after its apparent death.
A transient golem's crystal phylactery is Tiny and has 40 hit points, hardness 20, and a break DC of 40.
Transient Golem Duplicate
A transient golem can use its infusion special attack to turn itself into an imitation of any living creature. Its appearance is identical to the creature it is duplicating, but its behavior may be different. Most noticeably, they always have an obsessive thirst for blood, which they must feed upon to maintain their physical form.
Some transient golem duplicates do not realize they are imposters and sincerely believe they are the creature they are imitating.
Creating a Transient Golem Duplicate
"Transient golem duplicate" is an acquired template that can be added to any living, corporeal creature (referred to hereafter as the base creature).
A transient golem duplicate uses all the base creature's statistics and special abilities except as noted here.
Special Attacks: A transient golem duplicate retains all the special attacks of the base creature and gains a blood-draining incorporeal touch attack.
Steal Blood (Su): A transient golem duplicate has an incorporeal touch attack that does 1 point of Constitution damage, it can literally reach inside a victim to sup upon their blood and life force, as long as that victim has unhealed hit point damage. Any open wounds the victim may have will instantly close and stop bleeding (this stops any continuing damage from a wounding weapon or the like). This attack is subtle and completely painless. The victim will not realize they have been attacked unless they succeed at a DC 25 Spot check or a DC 20 Autohypnosis check. Victims will notice any miraculously closed wounds, of course, but this will appear as healing rather than an attack. Another character who closely examines the victim can notice their anemia with a successful DC 20 Heal check.
A transient golem duplicate can also steal blood through any natural attacks possessed by the creature it has duplicated, adding 1 point of Constitution damage to each such attack that hits.
Transient golem duplicates must use steal blood to maintain their corporeal form. For every day spent without stealing blood, a duplicate loses 1d3 points of Constitution. The duplicate can regain this lost Constitution using steal blood, regaining 1 point of Constitution for every point of Constitution damage it deals. If its Constitution ever falls to zero, it immediately loses its transient golem duplicate template and discorporate, becoming an incorporeal transient golem once more. The golem can not use steal blood to gain a Constitution score higher than the base creature it is duplicating. The golem instead gains 5 temporary hit points for every excess point of Constitution damage it steals, to a maximum equal to the bonus hit points of a Construct of its size. (e.g. a Medium duplicate can gain up to 20 temporary hit points through steal blood.)
Special Qualities: A transient golem duplicate has all the special qualities of the base creature as well as those described below.
Bloodthirst (Ex): A transient golem duplicate is driven by its need for fresh blood. Whenever it is within 60 ft. of a creature with a bleeding wound (from a sword of wounding or the like), it must succeed at a DC 15 Will save or immediately try to use its blood-draining touch to feed upon the bleeding creature's wound.
Discorporate (Ex): A transient golem duplicate can turn itself back into a transient golem as a standard action. It becomes incorporeal and loses all this template's abilities. Transient golems only discorporate in dire circumstances, they can become corporeal again by using their Infusion attack once more.
Immunity to Magic (Ex): A transient golem duplicate is immune to any spell or spell-like ability that allows spell resistance. In addition, certain spells and effects function differently against the creature, as noted below.
All spells with the Abjuration descriptor always function against a transient golem as if the golem was a creature of a type most vulnerable to the spell. e.g. a protection from evil spell affects a transient golem as if it was a summoned creature with the Evil subtype despite it being neutral and unlikely to be summoned. If the Abjuration would trap or control the golem, such as the dismissal, imprisonment or sequester spells, it instead "kills" the golem and forces it to return to its crystal phylactery (see above).
Note that this means protection from evil, magic circle against chaos and similar spells automatically prevent a transient golem using its Infusion attack, since they prevent summoned monsters from making bodily contact with those they are warding.
Scent Blood (Ex): A transient golem duplicate can notice living creatures in a 60 feet by the smell of their blood. It can detect spilled blood at ranges of up to a mile, and track a bleeding creature as if it had the scent special quality and the Track feat.
Transient Immunities (Ex): Although a transient golem duplicate has most of the body functions of a living creature, it is only an imitation of life. It retains some construct traits of its incorporeal form, as follows:
A newly formed duplicate has a Constitution score equal to the Con damage it did to the base creature with its Infusion attack, it use Blood-Draining Touch to increase its Constitution to its full value as quickly as it can.
Environment: Any.
Challenge Rating: As base creature +1.
Alignment: Usually neutral.
Level Adjustment: —.
Sample Transient Golem Duplicates
Transient Golem Duplicate Cat
Tiny Animal
Hit Dice: ½d8 (2 hp)
Initiative: +2
Speed: 30 ft. (6 squares)
Armor Class: 14 (+2 size, +2 Dex), touch 14, flat-footed 12
Base Attack/Grapple: +0/-12
Attack: Claw +4 melee (1d2-4 plus steal blood) or touch +4 touch (steal blood)
Full Attack: 2 claws +4 melee (1d2-4 plus steal blood) and bite -1 melee (1d3-4 plus steal blood)
Space/Reach: 2½ ft./0 ft.
Special Attacks: Steal blood
Special Qualities: Bloodthirst, discorporate, immunity to magic, low-light vision, scent, scent blood, transient immunities
Saves: Fort +2, Ref +4, Will +1
Abilities: Str 3, Dex 15, Con 10, Int 2, Wis 12, Cha 7
Skills: Balance +10, Climb +6, Hide +16*, Jump +10,
Listen +3, Move Silently +8, Spot +3
Feats: Stealthy, Weapon FinesseB
Environment: Temperate plains
Organization: Domesticated or solitary
Challenge Rating: 1
Advancement: —
Level Adjustment: —
Transient Golem Duplicate Dwarf
5th-level Fighter
Medium Humanoid (Dwarf)
Hit Dice: 5d10+10 (37 hp)
Initiative: +4
Speed: 20 ft. in chainmail (4 squares); base speed 20 ft.
Armor Class: 15 (+5 chainmail), touch 10, flat-footed 15
Base Attack/Grapple: +5/+7
Attack: Dwarven waraxe +8 melee (1d10+5/×3) or kukri +7 melee (1d4+3/18-20) or touch +7 touch (steal blood) or light crossbow +5 ranged (1d8/19-20)
Full Attack: Dwarven waraxe +6 melee (1d10+4/×3) and kukri +5 melee (1d4+1/18-20); or touch +7 touch (steal blood); or light crossbow +5 ranged (1d8/19-20)
Space/Reach: 5 ft./5 ft.
Special Attacks: Dwarf traits, steal blood
Special Qualities: Bloodthirst, darkvision 60 ft., discorporate, dwarf traits, immunity to magic, scent blood, transient immunities
Saves: Fort +6*, Ref +3*, Will +2*
Abilities: Str 14, Dex 11, Con 14, Int 10, Wis 9, Cha 6
Skills: Climb +5, Craft (blacksmithing) +2, Craft (butchery) +2, Craft (stonemasonry) +2, Handle Animal +1, Intimidate +6
Feats: Improved Initiative, Power Attack, Two-Weapon Fighting, Weapon Focus (dwarven waraxe), Weapon Specialization (dwarven waraxe)
Environment: Temperate mountains
Organization: Solitary, team (2-4), squad (11-20 plus 2 3rd-level sergeants and 1 leader of 3rd-6th level), or clan (30-100 plus 30% noncombatants plus 1 3rd-level sergeant per 10 adults, 5 5th-level lieutenants, and 3 7th-level captains)
Challenge Rating: 6
Treasure: Standard coins; double goods; standard items
Alignment: Often lawful good
Advancement: By character class
Level Adjustment: —
This transient golem has copied the form of a failed dwarf adventurer who now works as a butcher.
Originally appeared in Children of the Night: The Created (1999).
http://www.enworld.org/forum/genera...ing-creatures-other-campaign-settings-53.html
Golem, Transient
Medium Construct (Incorporeal)
Hit Dice: 13d10+20 (91 hp)
Initiative: +3
Speed: Fly 10 ft. (perfect)
Armor Class: 16 (+3 Dex, +3 deflection), touch 16, flat-footed 13
Base Attack/Grapple: +6/+6
Attack: Incorporeal touch +9 touch (infusion)
Full Attack: Incorporeal touch +9 touch (infusion)
Space/Reach: 5 ft./5 ft.
Special Attacks: Infusion
Special Qualities: Construct traits, crystal phylactery, darkvision 60 ft., immunity to magic, low-light vision
Saves: Fort +4, Ref +7, Will +7
Abilities: Str —, Dex 17, Con —, Int —, Wis 17, Cha 16
Skills: —
Feats: —
Environment: Any
Organization: Solitary
Challenge Rating: 8
Treasure: None
Alignment: Usually neutral
Advancement: —
Level Adjustment: —
The nearby fog as well has a slight tang of hot copper.
A transient golem is a sad creature of mist that craves life, to live as something more than semi-sentient air and water. Only in corporeal form can it feel physical sensations, experience human emotions, reason, and remember. Sadly, the transient golem can only assume a corporeal form by stealing life from other creatures, and this lasts but a short period of time.
When empowered by the essence of any living creature, the transient golem takes on that creature's form and appearance. Even clothing, armor, and weapons are duplicated, although they are merely solidified mist and do not function as the original objects.
The creator of the original transient golem is a mystery lost to the ages. It is speculated that a powerful wizard used a combination of a crystal ball, the trap the soul spell, and thirteen bound mist horrors.
COMBAT
In its natural mistlike form, the golem instinctually seeks out a host from which to steal life energy via infusion. Once the creature assumes a physical form, its next instinct is self-preservation, and it will take the most direct course of action available to it to maintain its new shape. The monster also begins to accumulate experience and memories immediately, and it quickly develops sophisticated methods to sustain itself without revealing its true nature.
A transient golem's armor class has a deflection bonus equal to its Charisma bonus or +1, whichever is higher.
Immunity to Magic (Ex): A transient golem is immune to any spell or spell-like ability that allows spell resistance. In addition, certain spells and effects function differently against the creature, as noted below.
All spells with the Abjuration descriptor always function against a transient golem as if the golem was a creature of a type most vulnerable to the spell. e.g. a protection from evil spell affects a transient golem as if it was a summoned creature with the Evil subtype despite it being neutral and unlikely to be summoned. If the Abjuration would trap or control the golem, such as the dismissal, imprisonment or sequester spells, it instead "kills" the golem and forces it to return to its crystal phylactery (see below).
Note that this means protection from evil, magic circle against chaos and similar spells automatically prevent a transient golem using its Infusion attack, since they prevent summoned monsters from making bodily contact with those they are warding.
Infusion (Su): An incorporeal transient golem can attempt to enter the body of a living, corporeal creature in order to steal its life-force and copy its mind and body. First, the golem must succeed at an incorporeal touch attack to enter an orifice on its victim. If successful, on the next round the victim must succeed at a DC 19 Fort save or the transient golem enters their mind and nervous system, causing excruciating agony (-4 to attacks, skills and ability checks) for 1d4+1 rounds. In addition, the victim takes 1d3 Con damage per round as the golem saps their life-force. Finally, at the end of the 1d4+1 rounds, the golem leaves the victim's body and takes a corporeal form duplicating the victim (this is given by the Transient Golem Duplicate template below). If the save succeeds, the transient golem is expelled from the victim's body and can not use its Infusion attack against that creature again for 24 hours. The save DC is Charisma-based.
Crystal Phylactery
A transient golem's life force is stored in a crystal sphere similar to a lich's magic phylactery. The creation of a transient golem is actually the creation of its crystal phylactery. As a rule, the only way to get rid of a transient golem for sure is to destroy its phylactery. Unless its phylactery is located and destroyed, the golem reappears 1d10 days after its apparent death.
A transient golem's crystal phylactery is Tiny and has 40 hit points, hardness 20, and a break DC of 40.
Transient Golem Duplicate
A transient golem can use its infusion special attack to turn itself into an imitation of any living creature. Its appearance is identical to the creature it is duplicating, but its behavior may be different. Most noticeably, they always have an obsessive thirst for blood, which they must feed upon to maintain their physical form.
Some transient golem duplicates do not realize they are imposters and sincerely believe they are the creature they are imitating.
Creating a Transient Golem Duplicate
"Transient golem duplicate" is an acquired template that can be added to any living, corporeal creature (referred to hereafter as the base creature).
A transient golem duplicate uses all the base creature's statistics and special abilities except as noted here.
Special Attacks: A transient golem duplicate retains all the special attacks of the base creature and gains a blood-draining incorporeal touch attack.
Steal Blood (Su): A transient golem duplicate has an incorporeal touch attack that does 1 point of Constitution damage, it can literally reach inside a victim to sup upon their blood and life force, as long as that victim has unhealed hit point damage. Any open wounds the victim may have will instantly close and stop bleeding (this stops any continuing damage from a wounding weapon or the like). This attack is subtle and completely painless. The victim will not realize they have been attacked unless they succeed at a DC 25 Spot check or a DC 20 Autohypnosis check. Victims will notice any miraculously closed wounds, of course, but this will appear as healing rather than an attack. Another character who closely examines the victim can notice their anemia with a successful DC 20 Heal check.
A transient golem duplicate can also steal blood through any natural attacks possessed by the creature it has duplicated, adding 1 point of Constitution damage to each such attack that hits.
Transient golem duplicates must use steal blood to maintain their corporeal form. For every day spent without stealing blood, a duplicate loses 1d3 points of Constitution. The duplicate can regain this lost Constitution using steal blood, regaining 1 point of Constitution for every point of Constitution damage it deals. If its Constitution ever falls to zero, it immediately loses its transient golem duplicate template and discorporate, becoming an incorporeal transient golem once more. The golem can not use steal blood to gain a Constitution score higher than the base creature it is duplicating. The golem instead gains 5 temporary hit points for every excess point of Constitution damage it steals, to a maximum equal to the bonus hit points of a Construct of its size. (e.g. a Medium duplicate can gain up to 20 temporary hit points through steal blood.)
Special Qualities: A transient golem duplicate has all the special qualities of the base creature as well as those described below.
Bloodthirst (Ex): A transient golem duplicate is driven by its need for fresh blood. Whenever it is within 60 ft. of a creature with a bleeding wound (from a sword of wounding or the like), it must succeed at a DC 15 Will save or immediately try to use its blood-draining touch to feed upon the bleeding creature's wound.
Discorporate (Ex): A transient golem duplicate can turn itself back into a transient golem as a standard action. It becomes incorporeal and loses all this template's abilities. Transient golems only discorporate in dire circumstances, they can become corporeal again by using their Infusion attack once more.
Immunity to Magic (Ex): A transient golem duplicate is immune to any spell or spell-like ability that allows spell resistance. In addition, certain spells and effects function differently against the creature, as noted below.
All spells with the Abjuration descriptor always function against a transient golem as if the golem was a creature of a type most vulnerable to the spell. e.g. a protection from evil spell affects a transient golem as if it was a summoned creature with the Evil subtype despite it being neutral and unlikely to be summoned. If the Abjuration would trap or control the golem, such as the dismissal, imprisonment or sequester spells, it instead "kills" the golem and forces it to return to its crystal phylactery (see above).
Note that this means protection from evil, magic circle against chaos and similar spells automatically prevent a transient golem using its Infusion attack, since they prevent summoned monsters from making bodily contact with those they are warding.
Scent Blood (Ex): A transient golem duplicate can notice living creatures in a 60 feet by the smell of their blood. It can detect spilled blood at ranges of up to a mile, and track a bleeding creature as if it had the scent special quality and the Track feat.
Transient Immunities (Ex): Although a transient golem duplicate has most of the body functions of a living creature, it is only an imitation of life. It retains some construct traits of its incorporeal form, as follows:
- Immunity to all mind-affecting effects (charms, compulsions, phantasms, patterns, and morale effects).
- Immunity to death effects and necromancy effects.
- Not subject to ability damage, ability drain or energy drain.
- Not at risk of death from massive damage. Immediately destroyed when reduced to 0 hit points or less.
- Since it was never alive, a transient golem duplicate cannot be raised or resurrected.
A newly formed duplicate has a Constitution score equal to the Con damage it did to the base creature with its Infusion attack, it use Blood-Draining Touch to increase its Constitution to its full value as quickly as it can.
Environment: Any.
Challenge Rating: As base creature +1.
Alignment: Usually neutral.
Level Adjustment: —.
Sample Transient Golem Duplicates
Transient Golem Duplicate Cat
Tiny Animal
Hit Dice: ½d8 (2 hp)
Initiative: +2
Speed: 30 ft. (6 squares)
Armor Class: 14 (+2 size, +2 Dex), touch 14, flat-footed 12
Base Attack/Grapple: +0/-12
Attack: Claw +4 melee (1d2-4 plus steal blood) or touch +4 touch (steal blood)
Full Attack: 2 claws +4 melee (1d2-4 plus steal blood) and bite -1 melee (1d3-4 plus steal blood)
Space/Reach: 2½ ft./0 ft.
Special Attacks: Steal blood
Special Qualities: Bloodthirst, discorporate, immunity to magic, low-light vision, scent, scent blood, transient immunities
Saves: Fort +2, Ref +4, Will +1
Abilities: Str 3, Dex 15, Con 10, Int 2, Wis 12, Cha 7
Skills: Balance +10, Climb +6, Hide +16*, Jump +10,
Listen +3, Move Silently +8, Spot +3
Feats: Stealthy, Weapon FinesseB
Environment: Temperate plains
Organization: Domesticated or solitary
Challenge Rating: 1
Advancement: —
Level Adjustment: —
Transient Golem Duplicate Dwarf
5th-level Fighter
Medium Humanoid (Dwarf)
Hit Dice: 5d10+10 (37 hp)
Initiative: +4
Speed: 20 ft. in chainmail (4 squares); base speed 20 ft.
Armor Class: 15 (+5 chainmail), touch 10, flat-footed 15
Base Attack/Grapple: +5/+7
Attack: Dwarven waraxe +8 melee (1d10+5/×3) or kukri +7 melee (1d4+3/18-20) or touch +7 touch (steal blood) or light crossbow +5 ranged (1d8/19-20)
Full Attack: Dwarven waraxe +6 melee (1d10+4/×3) and kukri +5 melee (1d4+1/18-20); or touch +7 touch (steal blood); or light crossbow +5 ranged (1d8/19-20)
Space/Reach: 5 ft./5 ft.
Special Attacks: Dwarf traits, steal blood
Special Qualities: Bloodthirst, darkvision 60 ft., discorporate, dwarf traits, immunity to magic, scent blood, transient immunities
Saves: Fort +6*, Ref +3*, Will +2*
Abilities: Str 14, Dex 11, Con 14, Int 10, Wis 9, Cha 6
Skills: Climb +5, Craft (blacksmithing) +2, Craft (butchery) +2, Craft (stonemasonry) +2, Handle Animal +1, Intimidate +6
Feats: Improved Initiative, Power Attack, Two-Weapon Fighting, Weapon Focus (dwarven waraxe), Weapon Specialization (dwarven waraxe)
Environment: Temperate mountains
Organization: Solitary, team (2-4), squad (11-20 plus 2 3rd-level sergeants and 1 leader of 3rd-6th level), or clan (30-100 plus 30% noncombatants plus 1 3rd-level sergeant per 10 adults, 5 5th-level lieutenants, and 3 7th-level captains)
Challenge Rating: 6
Treasure: Standard coins; double goods; standard items
Alignment: Often lawful good
Advancement: By character class
Level Adjustment: —
This transient golem has copied the form of a failed dwarf adventurer who now works as a butcher.
Originally appeared in Children of the Night: The Created (1999).
Last edited: